Musician;
Born March 24, 1946;
Died March 20, 2008.

KLAUS Dinger, who has died of heart failure four days before his 62nd birthday, played in two of the most influential avant-garde rock bands born from the post-1960s European counter-culture.

Kraftwerk were still only half-formed when he joined as drummer in 1970, but it was through this he met Michael Rother, with whom he would form Neu! While Kraftwerk explored electronica, the three albums released by Neu! define the much-lauded "motorik" beat, a propulsive, no-frills style cited and co-opted in various degrees by David Bowie, Brian Eno, Primal Scream and Stereolab.

Growing up in post-war Germany, Dinger sang in the school choir, then took up drums as a teenager. After studying architecture for three years, Dinger dropped out, discovered LSD and toured Southern Germany in a covers band called The Smash.

Released in 1972, a self-titled debut album revealed the shock of the Neu! made flesh. The album's Dinger-designed sleeve, on which the band-name was boldly scrawled, was steeped in a pop art sensibility born of Dinger's time living in a commune founded on an advertising agency he'd set up in name only. Dinger was apparently driven by an all-consuming love for a Swedish girl named Anita which stayed with him long after the object of his affections had been decamped to Norway and away from Dinger by her father.

Neu! sold well, though this didn't prevent its follow-up, Neu! 2, running out of money midway through recording. Dinger dealt with this creatively, reconstructing already laid-down tracks at different speeds.

With Dinger's relationship with Rother in meltdown, Anita gone and money lost on his own record label and a couple of disastrous free festivals, Neu! fell apart.

Dinger formed La Dusseldorf, who combined the Neu! beat with commercial Glam to huge success, releasing three albums between 1976 and 1981. Neondian, released in 1985 under Dinger's own name, was a blistering attack on Reagan-era America's foreign policy. The same year saw Dinger and Rother reunite to record as Neu! With few record labels interested, the project was aborted.

Dinger later fused the defining poles of his past by forming La! Neu?, releasing a stream of eccentric albums throughout the 1990s. Neu! reconvened again in 2001, though this time only for a tense set of interviews to publicise their back catalogue's re-release.